Mississippi: Should Hunting and Fishing Camps Have to Elevate?

Mississippi: Should Hunting and Fishing Camps Have to Elevate?~

Mississippi: Should Hunting
and Fishing Camps Have to Elevate?~

Official rules for the National Flood Insurance Program
(NFIP) restrict the eligibility for flood insurance to
buildings in states, counties, or towns that enforce building
codes and flood mitigation policies prescribed by the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). If your town or state
doesn’t enforce building codes and doesn’t
have rules regulating development in the flood plain —
including the elevation of structures above the Base Flood
Elevation (BFE) — then you can’t buy
Federally backed flood insurance for a building in that
jurisdiction.
And there’s more — FEMA emergency loans
and other flood-relief spending also may be unavailable for
towns or counties who can’t qualify to participate in
the NFIP.
That’s now a potential problem for the whole state of
Mississippi. Why? Because, by law, the state exempts hunting
and fishing camps from compliance with local building codes and
zoning rules. And FEMA now says that if the state
won’t require those casual structures to comply with
the same elevation requirements as full-time occupied homes,
the entire state may be disqualified from participating in the
NFIP.
The issue has been simmering for months. Back in August,
Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood asked
Mississippi’s Congressional delegation to intercede
with FEMA, asking for some wiggle room. The Mississippi
Business Journal had this report
(“
Hood: State risks being cut out of NFIP,” by MBJ
Staff).
But FEMA is unwilling to bend, according to a recent report.
The Bolivar Commercial reported this month that FEMA
official David Miller, the administrator of the Federal
Insurance and Mitigation Administration, has officially
responded in the negative
(“
FEMA replies to AG’s floodplain request,”
by Chance Wright). The Commercial says that in a letter
to Attorney General Hood, Miller wrote, “There is a
requirement that a community must adopt adequate floodplain
management regulations before joining the NFIP and is a
condition of eligibility that cannot be waived. If a community
lacks the ability to legally enforce its floodplain management
ordinance uniformly, then it is not in compliance with the
NFIP.”
And Miller said that if Mississippi insists on exempting
hunting and fishing camps from its rules, the whole state will
indeed lose its Federal insurance eligibility, along with other
relief aid. Wrote Miller, “If a flood disaster occurs
in a suspended community, then most types of federal disaster
assistance to individuals and households for housing and
personal property would not be available. So, should the state
want to continue its participation in NFIP, then Section 17-2-9
of the Mississippi Code must be remedied before the end of the
2012 Mississippi State Legislative Session. Should that action
not occur, Mississippi communities would be suspended from the
NFIP effective on May 5, 2012.”